


kismet

by asperah



Category: Midsommar (2019)
Genre: Astrology, Dark, Dubious Consent, F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Its a love story but its also creepy, Ritual Cult Stuff, Sorry in advance to the Sagittarius peps, Water Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 02:48:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19862269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asperah/pseuds/asperah
Summary: As it should be; their first coupling takes place with water and earth pulsing against them, meeting and joining and stirring beneath their soaked bodies. It is fated, because the soil needs rain to grow, because the bull needs a moon maiden to weaken and strengthen his resolve, because he wants her and that is enough.Life itself manifests at the point where he ends and she begins, and so the will of the universe; the stars and sun and the planets above, will let him have her.Dani/Pelle, post-Midsommar





	kismet

_"It's too late. She's already penetrated the secret place no one else has ever quite reached - his heart. Since a Bull's heart is as strong as both his will and his back, he probably won't break in half. But he'll never again be the same, once this girl has enticed him to run along the beach under a midnight sky, in the zigzag directions of the Crab, crying and laughing - and feeling." _- **Linda Chapman, 'The Love Signs'**__

__  
__

The ashes and burnt charred wood from the rubble are collected from the side of the forest where the nine burned inside the yellow cabin. Small children and women gather up tiny pieces into mason jars, weeping as they extract pieces of ruin. A line of men remove the blue plastic tarp that encircled the building. Elders pour water on various parts of the ground. Others chant incantations, burning myrrh and sage to let it adjourn in the air over parts of the debris.

The redheaded young woman, Maja, has left with a large filled jar. She sniffs the contents inside and cries almost instantly before settling into a crazed laugh. Gathering up a handful of dust, she rubs it fervently underneath her clothes, onto her stomach where her fetus is growing. 

Dani sits on the ground several feet away, flowers engulfing and suffocating her, tired and awashed. It is as if all the dead life, all the cut and weaved plants she wears, are instead growing out from inside her, stemming up from her veins and organs, spiralling up and up from all of her curves, lines, bumps, and grooves; nature and women have become one. Whole and unified. The weight of it makes her descend down, back into the earth. 

All tears have left, and she is spent. Her eyes are red, face swollen and rough. Body worn out from all the feeling. It is too much for the soul to take in one sitting. Pelle sits next to her, still adorned with a garland of twig, pine and birch in the shape of a crown. 

The Green Man next to his queen. 

“The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix…ashes new create another,” he says as he studies her face. He grabs her palm, just as he did before in the cabin before, so intimately, so gently that she feared (or hoped) that Christian would care if he saw. His hands are much bigger than hers, parts coarse from gardening and drawing. He cups her hand entirely, as though he is protecting something precious; a sacred secret just for him to hold and keep, shielding her exposed skin. 

‘Do you feel held?’ he had asked her once. 

_New things grow from old remains._

* * *

An elder named Ulf looks straight into her eyes and says, “welcome home.” Home is added, emphasized, spoken to her and her alone. The rest of excluded, unmentioned; soon they will have tulips and daises inserted into their sockets. Soon, one will dress in bear-hide, and burn in the shape of a beast. They will all die here, but here it will be her home. 

Dani makes little note of it, the word feels hollow now, but she soaks up the gesture, letting the warmth of the invitation fill her up, unaware of its permanence. 

* * *

The first time he sees her – one year before the trip to Hårga – something stirs in him. A house party bustling with people he recognizes from various elective classes but does not know intimately. The girl is dancing drunk with a set of other women whose movements are sexual, shifting hips and thrusting ass. But she is different, her eyes are closed shut, with tight wrinkles forming on her scrunched up face, to feel the song, rather than dance to it. Her hands lifted upwards, fingers synchronizing with the melody and he can almost hear her deep dulcet hums aligning with the beats of the verse. 

In her own world, so open and full. It sets him to stop and halt. 

He watches her until the song ends, and the stirring continues. 

He watches until she breaks her movements off to share a laugh with the others. Sees her glide over to Christian, who had been flirtatiously rubbing white powder from another girls nose moments before, and the stirring within him carries on, but now it is followed with an ache. 

* * *

“It isn’t right,” Pelle agrees softly one evening, sitting on the couch, as the rest of group drunkenly encourages Christian to severe the relationship for the umpteenth time over the last month. The table is littered with fried meats covered in bread crumbs and buttered dough, oozing out grease and fat. A mixture of ganji and hashish fills their system, sending them into a haze. Mark murmurs, words slurring and punitive: ‘no pussy, no point.’ 

He encourages the breakup along with the others, and takes every opportunity to dissuade his capricious friend from continuing the relationship. Not out of disapproval of her, and not because of the promiscuous benefits that would inevitably emerge from a single status, but because he wants to appear congenial with the group. A friend, a confidant; in unison with the majority and non-threatening. 

Most importantly though, because with his relationship because it is _unnatural._

Christian was born on the first days of December, the umbilical cord cut under the season of the archer; birthed amidst a simmering winter. In alignment with Jupiter, a planet of overabundance and magnetism, the hunter who roams free, flinging arrows at targets ahead, searching beyond and forward. A half man and half beast is not suited for domestic life, his eyes instinctively wonder. 

His friend is part of the Fire Trigon, mutable and changing…his friend is meant to embrace many women, not one. 

* * *

“Flower children,” Dani says with a smile, and there is no off-handed humour in her statement. No absurdity staining the pitch of her voice. 

“Oh yes,” he replies, rather sheepishly. “Big time. We do our own thing, love our astrology...” 

“What’s your sign?,” she asks, meeting his gaze. The buzz and the hum vibrate in his skull once more. There, it stirs again, so strongly this time that he has to look down. 

“Taurus,” Pelle reveals with a soft smile before pausing. “You?” 

“Cancer.” 

And there it is, the stirring make sense a bit more sense. The overwhelming need makes sense. 

“Oh yes, I do see that,” he says, pausing. “Your birthday?” 

“July seventh.” 

Dark green eyes merge with pale blue, so complete and emotive and he knows. It all makes absolute sense. He can see her charted wheel forming in his mind, see it settle perfectly next to his. The three sacrificial lambs were a collection on the road leading towards her. His journey to this country had reaped more benefits than he had originally anticipated. “You know,” he responses after the silence. “I think it’s actually very good you’re coming.” 

* * *

To confirm his own suspicious, an astrological natal chart is devised shortly after, the degrees to which the sun and the moon are positioned in the skies at the moment she broke through from the womb. Saturn rising, Neptune moon. A firm image shielding deep emotive vulnerability; so great and so honest and so undeniably perfect that he cannot help but weep at the beauty of it all. The perfect match for him; the reason for his ache, the reason for her strained bond with Christian. 

_Oh dear one,_ he thinks, _he was never meant for you and you were never meant for him._

Pelle submits the chart to the elders for approval, requesting that she be considered as a possible recruit for him to steal. They write back, ‘the solar placements are indeed harmonious and true. Your pilgrimage to America was preordained by the fated ones. If the potential candidate has no familial attachments, and proves to be susceptible, we have no objections. Bring us enough skins to burn for the dark one, then may you feast upon her.’ 

He does, and he will. 

* * *

Perforate St John’s-worts bloom a path towards the community. Dani skips and steps between the bright yellow flowers, careful not to break the herbaceous plants. It makes a golden road, and she imagines for a second that she is Dorothy from Oz, traveling to an unknown land with her friends; one with no brain – who searches for a knowledge that he does not understand or respect, one with no heart and all metal – searching for love, and the last – a coward with no daring or nerve to act. 

But there are four in the group, not three: Pelle. He is the extra, the one who is familiar with the way; who knows the path and where it leads. 

Stealing a look at him, thick brown hair reaching down the base of his neck in faint waves, face giving away nothing other than a serene, contemplative expression as he walks forward. She wonders for an instant if he is the evil monkey, or perhaps a witch. 

And if he is a witch – which one is he? The good one from the north or the wicked one from the west. 

* * *

In the textbook _‘Ancient and Historical Remedies for Psychological Disorders,’_ page 239, chapter seven, it reads: “hypericum perforate, also known as St John’s wort is a flowering plant in the family Hypericaceae, used as a medicinal herb with possible antidepressant activity. US Food and Drug Administration has not approved the herb for consumption, and the plant is poisonous to livestock.”

It is in a textbook that Dani will never read. 

From a class introduced in the fall that she will never take. 

Offered by a college in a country that she will never return to. 

* * *

The blood eagle is a hard method to replicate completely without puncturing the internal organs unnecessarily. The human body is so interconnected, so sophisticated that a single lesion in an unintended area can spoil the drawing. Simon is alive and conscious, but his bodily functions and facilities are still unresponsive. Ingemar assists him – it is his sacrifice after all – in tearing off the skin and shearing off ligaments, costal cartilages and tissue until the lines of ribs expose itself. Blood splutters all over, hands coated in thick dark red as he saws through bone. An elder watches over their work in the corner of the coop. 

One by one, shredding from the vertebrae, each ribbed bone drops to floor to be buried underneath straw for the hens to inspect and attempt to eat. 

The pair of lungs are carefully pulled out, and with a needle and thread the elder attaches them to opposite walls in the shed. 

Chickens and fowls start flooding back into their wooden house to roost for the night. There, the animals are greeted with a friend. A new bird; suspended in the air, forming a large winged shadow above as they dance and cuckle and coo. 

* * *

Mirroring the girls in heavy white linen, Dani walks backwards to collect wildflowers, clutching an assortment of colours, and gingerly gives them to Christian. He sniffs them appreciatively, but lets them hang next to his waist, upside down, after a cursory acknowledgment. Eventually, they are forgotten and placed on the ground outside the cabin steps where they all sleep. 

In the background, watching, Pelle frowns at the exchange. He would have taken them with love. Crushed each one up, root to petal, with a mortar and pestle. Boiled them in water taken from a lonesome stream near the village, inhaled the flowery fumes until leaf and liquid are one. Then, he would have consumed it all, have it live on in his form; her gift inside his body. Her love, is his love. 

Instead, it leans next to the steps on a porch. Detached from the earth and dying. Wasteful. 

* * *

The weight of their bodies settles into wildgrass, backs flush against the ground, forcing the green surface to flatten and mould itself around their frames. Snow angels in the summertime season. Morning nears and creeps up ahead of them, but she feels as though she could doze off now. Clouds above build up to break apart in minutes, painting white and grey spots in the blue sky. Sounds of bumblebees buzz in the distance, flying nearer and nearer, singing in unison with their stable breathing; in and out, in and out. 

“Why do you stay?” She asks him suddenly, face still turned to look up, searching for a distinct animal to form in the air. “You could finish your studies. There isn’t any need to be here.” 

“Oh, Dani,” and she can feel him looking at her now, staring deeply like he always does, even when she first met him. “There is every need is to be here.” 

His knuckles brush up against hers, and she shivers. Leaves are stemming up from her palm, growing rapidly out and away from her skin, rising to the warmth of the hot sun. It gives her bravery and she turns her face to look. The beard is a little longer now, but trimmed. Its dark hairs pulsate unnaturally, and she catches it with her fingers, traces the beat down into his jawline. 

Dani can feel his teeth in his mouth clench and his throat swallow, and she withdraws. “I thought,” she says abruptly, timidly. “There was a beetle there.” 

The bells rang out, signaling the two to gather with the others at the long-table to break their fasting. She was sure that Pelle would have kissed her again if it hadn’t rung. 

(She was right, he would have. She wanted him to, but does not yet believe the wanting fully belongs to her. All in good time.) 

* * *

It is traditional to embrace the May Queen after she has been crowned under the maypole. Nose-touching, a soft brush or graze; quick and congratulatory. Gone within seconds before the next one takes over. Engulfed by the crowd, many maids and men reach her before Pelle, out-stretched and smiling at her as she stumbles onwards, sending her off-balance. She sees her dead mother drifting out, walking towards and then away from the mob of people. She cries out to her, wanting to follow, but he breaks her concentration – filling the absent space at her side. 

His mouth and arms lift her up softly to meet his height. There, as he palms her face in his hands, he swallows her up whole. Instinctively, Dani rises up against him; tongue and lips joining as he kisses her slow and hard. Unhurried and tender. Soul crushing. It lasts much shorter than it should before he breaks it, and as they detach, she feels as though a part of her leaves with him. The magic lingers, and she falters under the aftermath of the spell he casted upon her body. 

She wonders if Pelle is a sorcerer after all. 

* * *

When Dani tells her family that she has decided to study clinical psychology, there is genuine confusion that radiates from the dinner table. Her mother’s brow furrows, ‘surely a specializing in mathematics, science or engineering is a better option’ and her father makes no comment, just measures a spoonful of peas onto his plate. So she pauses, unsure, before confessing that she selected the program for her sister. 

Terri only shakes her head, sad tears spilling quietly over onto the napkins, and says to her afterwards, ‘you give people too much, Dani. The world is going to hurt you for that.’ 

* * *

In the beginning, Christian takes from her when he can, but it was his pleasure that is prioritized, not hers. 

She provides multiple holes that he bucks his cock into until the break of exhaustion. In the aftermath, his touches are fleeting and gone before she can feel his love and when she does, it arrives forced and artificial. Stale. He drives the words out, uttering an ‘I love you’ after. But the phrase dies on the ends of his lips before it can even finish. 

It was birthed from an obligation; clumsy and graceless. Like attempting to light a candle from a cake baked and failing, all the while forgetting to finish the birthday song. Or the dull reception and forced clap she receives when she invites him over to stay the night. Or sulky face he made when she was bold and drunk enough to ask for oral sex. 

Did she ever feel held by him? 

Yes, but not very well. 

* * *

Maja stains her lips bright red, and fashions a frock with scarlet lacings and thread to announce to the rest that a child is quickening in her womb. 

Some days, her eyes wander over to the girls stomach to catch signs of a growing mountain. There, Dani sees herself: an alternate timeline, one that is pitiful and frightening. To her surprise, the redheaded girl gives her no grief or bitterment, only a sense of relief. 

* * *

Every night, Pelle hands her a liquid substance in a miniature flask that looks like a potion to help her sleep, ‘it calms the mind,’ he says when he first gives it to her. ‘lulls you into a world that tastes sweeter.’ 

It consists of lavender, meant to quiet the nerves. The scent alone lets her lids lilt and close for the night. 

But the drink also contains ingredients with other properties, ones for a greater purpose; slivers of mandragora root as an aphrodisiac, a strand of his hair to seal her affection, henbane for delirium, honeyed rosewater for palatability, and crushed worms for fertility. A potion for love, not sleep; it calms the mind and lulls you into a world that tastes sweeter. 

It is not deception entirely, Pelle never lies; for a women who loves (and who is properly loved) is one who is effortlessly tranquil at night. Untroubled by past, present and future. 

In the morning, Dani wakes holding a wooden ruin under her pillow, and rubs the sand away from her eyes. Feeling well rested and serene. 

* * *

Pelle watches as Christian is placed carefully into the bearskin; the stench of rotting flesh filling the room. As they sow him up with a needle and thread, he bends down and whispers softly into his ear – in English, so he understands, ‘thank you, my good friend, for bringing her to me’ and kisses the top of his forehead. 

* * *

Over the next month, she gives out blessings as queen to many men and women who wish to join together in bed. Siv instructs her to raise the lit torch high above her elbow, makes her sing the longwinded phrases that sanction fertility and advises her to place droplets of water onto their foreheads as the couple kneel before her. Most are young men and women, but sometimes it is a much younger girl who lays with a much, much older man. 

But Dani blesses them all, one after the other. So many and so often that she wonders whether or not her exclusion from the processes is purposeful, if queens remain chaste for the year, or forever. Like Queen Elizabeth, a virgin queen who governs but does not participate; a watcher who rules from the outside. _But men look and lust,_ they leer at her, stares resting greedily upon her breasts and hips for minutes. 

Not that she wants to…but the omission gnaws at her, day after day. So much that she eventually asks Hanna – the women close to her age that tripped in the final stretch of the dance under the maypole, the one who coached her and smiled brightly after she had won, holding her hands into hers, exclaiming loudly, “you are sister now, we are sisters. You will stay, won’t you?”

(calling any of the girls ‘sister’ is hard, Dani is sure she will never do it without seeing a mask over the mouth, tube filtering in carbon monoxide, eyes shutting forever)

It is in the evening hours that she asks her friend – her sister – while they are braiding hair before settling into bed for the night. 

“Am I not meant to…para?” Dani asks. The word ‘para’ is Swedish for ‘pair up, to couple.’ “Do outsiders not mate?” 

“You, May Queen, are no outsider,” her new sister said, bemused, as she starts braiding her thick dark golden locks into an elaborate knot, tying hibiscus, aster and baby’s breath into each crevasse. “Viable maids who have not been matched will be paired to men who share little or no relation with one another, like Karin and Ulrika. Sometimes, we bring men and women in from the outside world to help procreate for the others, but only if the stars predict a fruitful union. Sometimes spädbarn are taken. Ones that are not wanted or lost.” 

“But I am, or was,” Dani stammered on with little grace, looking down at the hems of the white dress that falls to her ankles, “from out there. Is it because of my stars?”

“No,” her new sister laughed, loud, almost shrill. Dani suddenly felt her cheeks growing hot, feeling foolish and dimwitted. “Not your stars – stjärnor. The mapping of the stjärnor och universum – stars and the universe – when you were born.”

“But why haven’t I been chosen, then?” she asks. 

“Oh,” Hanna looks at her thoughtfully, surprised. The braiding comes to a halt. “He…he has not told you yet, has he?” 

The brunette tilts her head in the direction of Pelle, who is speaking and standing closely to Siv with his hands folded, wearing the traditional loose white and embroidered blue longshirt and pants. Occupied, heedless. Dani is more comfortable observing him when he is unaware. 

Hanna drops the red flower from her other hand, face now exhibiting seriousness. “My dear…you have already been matched. To the one who brought you here.” 

There is a tight feeling that begins to take over. 

“I’m not,” Dani said, but it feels like a lie, because she remembers how his lips felt on her, wet and warm. Her mind scrambles at the thought, and her throat feels uncomfortably tight. “We haven’t done anything.” 

“Laws are not meant to be broken,” she says sternly, turning her head toward Pelle and then back to her. “You were his from the moment he presented you to us, Dani. That is why other men may look at you, but do not offer.” 

* * *

The Hårga community owns several bulls that graze among the cows and calves over the expansive pastures, chewing the green fields dry. One – the largest – stands before her in front of the red barn, a black beast with fur as dark as the night. Its form is massive, weighing over two thousand pounds, with angular horns jutting out from the sides of its head. Pelle comfortably stands next to it, intermittingly petting and patting its glistening dark hide as it chuddles and huffs with its big round snout. He pantomimes with his hands for her to come over and greet it. 

“How will I know if it’s safe?” Dani asks, feeling scared. The creature is thick boned and muscular, much taller and wider than her and she feels miniscule standing before it. “Shouldn’t I wait until he comes to me?” 

“You don’t. You must trust it,” he says. “He sees you, he knows you are there. This one is calm and gentle. He will not hurt you.” 

“Dani, you must come to him.” 

The bull looks to her, waiting as she finally steps forward, squeezing the bundle of hay, grass and leaves to offer it. When she reaches close enough, the animal extends its neck impatiently, reaches with its tongue out to nibble and munch away at the fist full of food. Then, Pelle grabs her hand and guides it over to stroke its shoulders as it continues to eat. 

“Do you feel it?” he asks. Its breathing is measured; a slow pulse. He keeps her hand locked onto hers, fingers laced on top, so they can feel it together; its sentience, its movement. 

She smiles up at him, and he mirrors her. Soft and intense, they watch as their eyes flicker to study each others countenance; inch by inch, centimetre by centimetre. 

A sudden sneeze emerges, whizzing out from the animal and she jumps comically, startled at the abrupt sound and sudden motion under her touch. Laugher fills her lungs, and like a reflection, he imitates her mirth – continuing to hold her hand, lacing his fingers into the spaces between hers. 

This time, Dani does not usher him away or tell him to stop. 

* * *

The virgin male – Ingemar – fails to tame his water scorpion. 

Years ago he wrote to the elders in London that he had found his match – just as Pelle did later on – only to be wrong in the end. The date was not in fact ‘a date’ and eventually her enigmatic dark eyes decided on an arachnid; a species of her own kind to marry. 

So Connie drowns. The one she was supposed to pair with tries to muffle her screams as he drags her off into the river in broad daylight. When the deed is done, he uses stones to anchor her body to the bottom. 

The elders let him have this kill, because it does not matter, the love he was supposed to have is lost to him. 

He will die with her in the end. Him, her, and his foe. 

* * *

The hottest day so far in the summer was drawing to a close, which prompted a host of people to proceed into the forest to escape the stifling human air, after a day of work and teaching had commenced. As the crowd navigated through the trees, they eventually reached a wide open creek, and a host from the group stripped bare, plunging their sweat soaked bodies into the dark, refreshing lake. 

Children played, jumping off from trees that grew from the water, splashing at one another, picking moss from pebbles nearby. Women dip their heads into branched off streams that stemmed from the open lake, and use large buckets to wash out dead leaves from their hair. Others partake in games of hide and seek; a younger girl not yet flowered ties uses the sleeves of her white tunic to use as a blindfold. Sightless, she searches for her victims with a wolfish grin, using the sounds from the water to detect each target. Dani participates – a more adroit swimmer than the rest – and evades the girls hands with a chuckle. 

Hanna starts a singsong after the rest have been gathered and tagged: 

_‘May Queen, May Queen,_  
_string her up high,_  
_keep her well fed,_  
_waiting in tides unseen,_  
_catch her from beneath,_  
_lift her up to dry_  
_up like a fly,_  
_for soon she will be wed’_  


Eventually, she lets herself get caught. The girl who found her is small, and gives her a toothy grin before shrieking, ‘min syster!’

The playing eventually stops, and people filter out until all have left but two.

Because she wants to stay. 

And of course, Pelle stays with her. 

The water becomes cooler as the hours go on, chilling alongside the enduring summer heat. Distributed pink lilies break off into the pond from the clearing, destroyed by the ones who had already left after bathing. Petals, twigs and dead leaves float and glide across the surface, gathering up into her hair. She makes ripples as she swims to various parts of the mere, examining sections of sago pondweeds that stand green and upright, pricking the tips of her fingers on its pointed ends. Her feet hit the bottom, and she lets her toes sink into the mud as sunfish nibble at her calves, until it hits hidden jagged rocks underneath. 

Dark emerald pads stick to her skin, and her pale nude body is visible beneath the dark murky waters. Tinted dark green. Her hair has gotten longer in the last month, growing down to her shoulder blades. Wet strands cling in clumps to back, making dark inked ribbons that curl at the end. 

At the clearing, a few feet away from the edge of the water, Pelle lays down on his side, elbow perching him up. He had opted not bathe himself completely, but instead chose to wash his face and hair in the water. Unstripped, pretending to analyze a blade of grass he had picked, he breaks it off into little sections, taking hasty glances at her – drinking in the sight of it, the beauty of it – as she lets herself lie flat along the bank water, her body split into two sections; the front half exposed to the heat, nipples uncovered, while the bottom half stayed submerged in the cool waters. 

Blood gathered up inside his groin, his cock is hard and erect, protruding through the waistband. Pelle did not need to look to know that the tips is probably purple, bulbous and aching now. He has watched her all day, feeling sore and bothered. In the beginning she stayed in her smallclothes while the others undressed, still modest, still holding onto western taboos surrounding nudity. But eventually, after ingesting psilocybin from a frail looking women (and after much coercion from other women), she removed her chemise. 

It was all it took for him not to take himself in his hands right then and there. Her pert breasts sprung against her toned, tanned body as she lifted her dress up and dived back into the water with two other maidens. And so, he held back, fighting against a raw arousal that refused to temper. 

Being alone with her has made it worse. The restraint he practises with her is breaking down. Now, he cannot bring himself to look for more than second before starring at the grassy ground. 

Dani starts swimming towards him – noticing his arousal – the drugs have worn off now, but she still feels daring. In control. 

“You should come,” she says, boldly, moving closer and closer to him. 

“Come,” he quips, and his groin roars at the thought. “But what is waiting for me beneath those waters?” 

“Nothing.” 

“Nothing?” He laughs nervously but holds her tight in his bright blue eyes, unwavering. “I am not so sure of that, hjärtanskär.” 

Dani knows that word, he calls her that often. Hearts love. She gulps when she hears him say it, and shivers as rain drops begin to fall from the sky. The heat has been ballooning up, hoarding all the moisture in the air high above, but now it is starting to burst; lightly falling down over them. 

“Maybe it is…something….Something you want,” she adds, wanting him to know that she knows the truth. That there is no need to hide now. “Something that is already – din, already yours.” 

“And what do you want, Dani?” 

There is a permanence to the situation that leaves her feeling petrified, realizing that _this is the moment_. The one that turns a relationship on its head. A flip of the coin. But theirs has been balancing on the rims for quite some time now, at a standstill, refusing to drop one way or another. It had been that way since he first met him: heads or tails, friend or acquaintance, friend or love, nothing or everything. Love that was more than what she once had – Love that was final and free.

A downpour of rain drops down now, hitting the pair. And like a rusulka, she catches her prey with her mouth, and pulls him down to the waters with her. 

As soon she fastens onto his lips, he holds on, and lets himself sink down. Their lips against one another tentatively, sweet and gentle but impossibly full. When their heads becomes level, she slips his wet shirt off from over his head between kisses and he unties the drawstrings, his throbbing shaft springing upright underwater. They cling onto one another, and his hungry hands hold onto every each of her body. 

Now, the kissing becomes more desperate, the passion unearthed and raw. His frantic mouth travels down her neck, to lick, suck and bite. Marking…and when he tightens his grasp on her; one on her thick round hips and another on her ass, she moans into his ear. Clinging to him, hands combing through his wet thick hair, Dani feels breathless and hot – it was not like this, it was never like this – so overpowering and tremendous. She can feel his hardness against her, and she wants it. Now. But as she moves her hand down to stroke him, Pelle stops and forces her to turn around, back flush against his chest, cock stiff between her ass. 

“Tell me,” he whispers to her ear, breathing hard. His fingers travel below to the space between her legs, and Dani cries out when he places two fingers between the wet folds, moving up and down, teasing the breath out of her. “Tell me.” 

They both heave and pant as the raindrops hint the water, and his fingers continue their steady agonizing pace, letting them brush and flick her clit. She keens and lifts under his touch, arching up but his grip remains steadfast, holding her flushed body against his; there is no letting go now. 

“Pelle,” is all that she can muster, and he slips his two fingers inside, thrusting in and out. Dani shudders and pleads. 

“Yes,” he musters, driving a third digit in with the rest. His cock is screaming at him, so rigid that it feels like iron sheathed under skin that he curses out loud, and lets it move to the front – at the opening – ready to take her in an instant, but he waits in pain because he needs to hear her first. “Say it.” _Tell me you want me. Speak it out loud._

“Fuck,” she groans. “I want it. I want you. Please, Pelle, ple – .” 

Before she can finish he removes his fingers and thrusts up into her, forcing himself through her tightness, where she is wet and warm and perfect. The two moan, catching raindrops as their mouths part in pleasure. Both home, both held. Frantic, they seize onto one another as he begins to piston into her. Dani moves with him, bucking her hips down so she can take all of him. There, they start to create rhythm that is animalistic and feral, both whimpering and tearing and thrashing – making waves, reaching into parts of each other that have not been discovered. He quickens his pace when he finds the spot that makes her scream, fucking her so deep and so hard that her tits bounce wildly just above the surface of the water. 

She can feel it building within her, getting closer and closer to the threshold, the beautiful feeling gaining on her – making her feel light and heavy at the same time. Dani is sure that if he stopped now she would burst from the pressure of it all. But he doesn’t and the waters rise, her legs give a shudder and a jerk and she cums. _Hard._ Body wet and trembling but weightless. 

Pelle releases her for a moment, and lumbers out of the lake to lift her up. Still hard, he lays her down on the muddy earth and takes her again. More slowly this time, both drenched in rainfall and sludge. Wide wanton pupils hide the pale blue of his eyes, and they burn through her, into her. 

As it should be; their first coupling takes place with water and earth pulsing against them, meeting and joining and stirring beneath their soaked bodies. It is fated, because the soil needs rain to grow, because the bull needs a moon maiden to weaken and strengthen his resolve, because he wants her and that is enough. They fuck each other gently until he finishes, emptying himself into her as she claws at his back, drawing blood. 

He whispers ‘jag älskar dig’ into her ears, holding her in his arms, caressing dirt off her cheeks. She knows what it means – not because she understands it – but because she interprets it through feeling. And so she smiles and kisses him sweetly as the rain continues to pour. 

Life itself manifests at the point where he ends and she begins; the will of the universe – the stars and sun and the planets above let him have her. 

As it should be. 

As it was always meant to be. 

* * *

Given name: Pelle, derived from the Greek word, ‘petra,’ meaning stone or rock. Swedish diminutive of the name ‘Per’ or ‘Peter.’ 

Water streams shift and adapt under the presence of stone under the moonlight, but time elects the former as the more powerful element. Eventually, it breaks down all substances, even rocks. 

In the end, the water takes us all. 

* * *

A love knot is tied tightly to both their wrists when he takes her the second time; hands out and over her head as he thrusts back and forth into her. Their official union; a different one than she had witnessed in the cabin, one bound by an everlasting rope. 

It happens outside, on the fields, with their brothers and sisters circled all around them. Holding candles and burning incense, the crowds echo their pleasure, chanting and moaning. When Pelle and Dani climax together – him spilling his seed into her belly – a plump man and lanky wrinkled woman place knifes between their clasped palms on each side, symmetrical, and drive the cut deep onto their love lines. 

The lesions overlap against their clasped hands; their blood blends into one.


End file.
